National Bank of Ukraine expects IMF monitoring program to be endorsed in December

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National Bank of Ukraine expects IMF monitoring program to be endorsed in December

MOSCOW. Nov 2 (Interfax) - Negotiating teams of Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have made significant progress in aligning their estimates of the macroeconomic situation in Ukraine and its budget while preparing the IMF's Program Monitoring with Board Involvement (PMB), National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Governor Andrei Pyshny said.

"We are expecting the Monitoring Program to be endorsed in the first half of December," Ukrainian media quoted Pyshny as saying on social media early on Wednesday, following a meeting with United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink.

Currently, international financing is extremely important for Ukraine, and the IMF should play a leading role in coordinating international support for financing the Ukrainian budget in 2023, he said.

"I reiterated particularly that the National Bank would [...] remain a strong and independent institution, which is among my priorities," Pyshny said.

As reported earlier, IMF Mission Chief for Ukraine Gavin Gray said on October 21 that there had been productive discussions and that the staff and the authorities would "advance work in the coming weeks to follow up on the authorities' request for Program Monitoring with Board Involvement (PMB)." Such new program is viewed as a step toward starting a full-scale IMF financing program for Ukraine. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in mid-October that such program for Ukraine could be available in early 2023.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko has said the government estimated the need for financing a state budget deficit in 2023 at varying from $3 billion to $4 billion a month, compared to $5 billion a month in 2022, an amount that Ukraine has never been able to raise.

A Ukrainian draft budget for 2023 passed at the first reading envisions $38 billion in foreign funding for financing a budget deficit, or about $3.2 billion a month, including $15 billion from the IMF.